Stay With Me
by CindyBarnard
Summary: Sequel to Wildest Dreams Another songfic, based on Sam Smith's Stay With Me. Bereft and pregnant, Hermione is alone, will someone be able to help her? Please R&R?


_26/11/2016 - just fixed some spelling and grammar issues_

 _And here is the Sequel to Wildest Dreams!_

 _In Heart, it is a Dramione, but in real it is a Romione (Don't hate me..)_

 _This time it's based on the song by Sam Smith; Stay With Me_

 _And yes, sequel is "Faded"._

 _But remember, I am trying to keep this real, as it would most likely be and turn out in real life, meaning mistakes made while young, bigger mistakes when older… you know real raw human flaws._

 _But we will see in the little sequels to follow… ;-)_

 **Disclaimer: Harry Potter and characters do not belong to me.**

 **the song and its contents/lyrics do not belong to me.**

 **everything belongs to their respective owners.**

 _Stay With Me_

Sickness.

That was all this had been, sickness, no glowing shine, no happy moments, no ethereal beauty.

Only sickness.

Depression.

It has been three months since that fateful ball, three months of living in some sort of absolute hell, a dark pit she doesn't see herself getting out off anytime soon.

You see at first she spent a few days crying in her apartment, and avoiding the owls and knocking on her door from Draco, she would be alright she had thought, she just needed to cry the heartbreak out of her system she thought.

And then the articles started; photos of the new Malfoy almost to be bride, the story of _them_ , as if it was some classic love story.

Yeah Right, they are as much in love as that she has hairy nipples, which she doesn't.

She realised then that maybe it wouldn't be so easy, for every time she saw him, if only on a photograph, she felt her whole being crumble all over again, her heart breaking into millions of tiny fragments, over and over again.

And then she started getting sick, nausea and fainting.

Once again she thought that maybe it was due to her lack of sleep and decent eating.

No, it wouldn't be something that easy of course, no she was pregnant.

Hermione Granger had retreated into the muggle world then, put in indefinite leave of absence, converted some of her war fortunes into muggle currency, moved out of her apartment in London into a cottage somewhere near the border of west Scotland, and locked herself away.

Only her parents knew where she was, not even her best friends knew.

She kept in touch by owl, but no one knew why she had left.

Well, so had she thought anyway.

DMHG

Puking had become her constant, her one true companion, the doctor said that it would pass within a few weeks, but she had already crossed the sixteen-week marker, and she was still puking.

With the last visit, the doctor had looked at her with pity and then he had informed her that sometimes the nausea lasted the whole pregnancy.

Fucking bastard.

And it was as she was sitting on the tiles on her bathroom floor, head hanging limply over the toilet, that she heard the soft yet firm footsteps approaching, no no no!

Please don't let him have found her, please Circe...

And yet when she looked up, soft and warm blue eyes met hers, the shocking red hair unmistakable.

"Mione..."

He spoke softly and then dropped next to her on his knee, he bundled her hair together and swept it out of her face as she started to heave again.

Then as she once more puked out the remainder of her guts, he rubbed slow circles on her back, murmuring constant endearments.

Eventually, she became vaguely aware that he had carried her to her bed, and gently covered her up, but Hermione didn't register anything, for exhaustion claimed her then.

 _"Guess it's true, I'm not good at a one-night stand—[lyrics]_

"Thank you, Ronald..."

She was sitting upright in her bed, sipping the tea Ron had brought her, he sat on the foot end opposite her, a very deep and sad look on his face, she shifted guiltily, knowing she had run away from her best friends, ran away from her problems.

"Mione... I'm not going to berate you. I'm not even going to ask why you ran and didn't talk to us, to me."

Her eyes met his briefly, but she didn't say anything, she just lowered them again in shame.

"You're my best friend Hermione. I love you, I'm here for you."

She sniffed as she tried to keep back a fresh set of tears, and instead placed her cup down on the bedside table, trying to hide her face, but Ron saw, and within a second he was next to her and gathered her up in his arms, it was all that was needed, for then she cried into his broad shoulder, thankful for the first time in months, that she wasn't alone.

That she had her best friend with her.

 _"Oh, won't you stay with me?—[lyrics]_

He moved into to spare bedroom, he stayed with her the entire time, he held her hair when she was sick, he rocked her to sleep when the sadness overwhelmed her, he went with her to buy baby things, and he held her hand while getting her scans at the doctor, he even in his blundering way cooked and made sure she ate.

She could never love him as anything more than her closest friend, he would never hold her heart like _the other_ did, but he loved her, he stayed with her, and that was all she needed.

It was as she entered her seventh month that Ron broached the subject of the future, she knew it had been coming, had been preparing for it for weeks, and in truth, she knew it was also what was meant to happen.

For she needed Ron, she needed his bravery, his strength.

"Hermione... I know you fell in love with him. I know who he is."

She gasped in shock, as far as she knew, no one had known about her and Draco, and she hadn't even attempted to bring up the parentage of her child before, her eyes met his warily from next to him where they sat together on the couch.

"I know I can never be him. I can never have his place in your heart. But I can love you enough for both of us."

He smiled softly at her, taking her hand between his and gently holding it, she felt his strength seeping through, the calmness of him, the safety of Ron Weasley.

"I will love your baby; I'll love her as my own. She will be safe, she will be loved."

He took a deep breath, keeping his warm blue eyes locked to hers.

"I have no interest to be him, or to replace him in your heart. I know I'm not smart like him, that I'll always be just a little bit on the lesser side of intelligence, I know I could never match him or you in battles of wit or even passion, but I'll protect you. I'll take care of you, and I'll be loyal to you."

A lone tear coursed down her cheek, it was true, Draco will always be her great true love, her wild passionate all-consuming love, but Ron Weasley will be the best friend she marries, the friend she loves in the safe and warm way, the friend that will protect her and her daughter, the friend that will love them unconditionally.

Some will say it is all the wrong reasons to get married, that you don't marry someone you don't love in the right way; that eventually, it would fail.

But she would rather marry the right man that she loved in the wrong way than marry the wrong man that she loved in the right way.

Besides, that man had already chosen his own right woman, and she had an unborn daughter to think of.

"Oh, Ron... Don't talk yourself down, you are so much more than you give yourself credit for. I'll always love you, you'll always be my best friend, and I'll do my absolute best to be a good wife to you. Just stay with me please."

 _"Why am I so emotional?—[lyrics]_

And so they were married in a quiet private ceremony, ordained by the Minister for Magic himself, no press or even a whisper of anything outside of the direct friends and family.

Eventually, the news had filtered out to the rest of the magical community that the two-thirds of the golden trio had gotten married sometime, and given birth to a beautiful girl, Rose Weasley. And everyone only smiled, for they had always said that those two would tie the knot one day, and weren't they right?

And Ron kept his promise, he stayed with them, he loved them and he protected them, for that was all Hermione needed, and no one ever guessed that Rose had any other father, other than Ron Weasley.

Even when the girl grew up with a lighter shade of brown hair than her mother, more a dirty blonde, sleek, and pin-straight. So unlike Ron or Hermione, even though if you looked into her eyes you saw not brown or blue, but piercing liquid silver grey, even though if you saw her chin and jawline, it wasn't square or round, but delicate and sharp, almost pointy.

For no one had reason to believe there had ever been another man in the life of Hermione Granger, and besides, Ronald Weasley stayed, he stayed with them.

 _"Oh, won't you stay with me – [lyrics]_

The End


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